Brazilian police have seized a British pet-shop owner who was caught trying to smuggle 1,000 live spiders out of the country in his suitcases, officers said tonight.

The man, who has not been named, was arrested late on Wednesday as he tried to board a flight to Europe at Rio de Janeiro's international airport.

Police were called in after an X-ray machine operator noticed something unusual about two of the passenger's bags.

"He's the owner of a pet shop in London and was apparently selling spiders there," Rafael Potsch Andreata, deputy head of airport police, told one Brazilian newspaper. Andreata said the man admitted he had planned to sell them in London.

"We are investigating if he has done this before and if there is some other kind of market such as selling them to extract poison in order to make medicine," he added.

A photograph, released by the federal police, showed a large brown tarantula crawling over a pile of small white boxes, used to transport the spiders.

The man, who faces up to a year in jail if convicted of animal trafficking, may also be forced to pay a fine of nearly £1.5m.

Police said it was the biggest ever seizure of wildlife at the airport, which has regular flights to the US, Europe and Africa as well as other South American countries.

Government figures show that each year at least 10 million animals are snatched from Brazil's forests. Each year the Brazilian government rescues around 50,000 animals from traffickers.